Event: VECTOR FESTIVAL 2016 (July 14-1 2016, Toronto, Canada)

VECTOR, one of the most compelling, original, and daring Game Art festivals, returns with a vengeance with a killer program. Now in its fourth iteration, the Canadian event has a special focus on algorithmic and post-human subjects. Subtitled Autonomous Agents, the festival is "a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing digital games and creative media practices. This year’s festival is co-curated by Skot Deeming and Martin Zeilinger and explores themes of autonomous algorithms and machines through emergent media art practices, live performance, screenings, workshops, and lectures. The Festival takes place across multiple venues in Toronto from July 14-17, 2016."

Because unlike the United States of Inequality, Canada is a civilized, democratic, and inclusive country, ticket passes are affordable for most and several events are open/free to the public. In fact, Festival passes are available for just $25 and offer FREE access to screening and performance events. Plus, Festival Pass holders get a free drip coffee from Sam James Coffee Bar (Queen St. W. location) throughout the duration of the festival.

Below is the full program.

VIP Preview

Join co-curators Skot Deeming and Martin Zeilinger for a private tour of the exhibition, The Algorithmic Imagination, and preview the festival's upcoming events. Tickets to this event include free access to Vector screening and performance events. (5:30-6:30pm, $100)

Launch Party and Opening Reception

We kick off Vector Festival 2016 with an energized evening at InterAccess. Festival curators, artists and performers will be in attendance. The works in The Algorithmic Imagination explore the artistic potentials of algorithmic processes. These processes, expressed in the exhibition in kinetic sculptures and screen-based works, are perched between the appropriated and the pre-determined, the autonomous and the random. (7-10pm, FREE)

SCREENING

Basement Revolutionaries, Curated by Amber Christensen and Clint Enns at CineCycle in a time and place awash in the detritus of early 21st Century capitalism, we look to our basement revolutionaries to lead us not upwards but downwards into a bunker of safety to wait it out. Duck and cover, and grab a snack...it may be your only way to survive. (8-11pm, $15)

WORKSHOP

Sonic Pi Live Coding Introductory Workshop, facilitated by Martin Zeilinger

at InterAccess Live coding is an exciting form of experimental digital sound-making that uses on-the-fly programming techniques to mix traditional improvisation with algorithmic composition. This workshop will introduce you to create live electronic music through simple programming techniques using a mix of sound synthesis and digital sampling. In the practice of live coding, the computer code you enter yields an instant sonic feedback. No prior programming skills required. (11am-3pm, $45 regular/$35 member)

PERFORMANCE

Join us for an evening of performances that bridge the spaces between the composed and the improvised, the generative and the algorithmic, the analog and the digital. Featuring live coding, modular synthesis and generative visuals, performers explore the boundaries of control within sonic and visual apparatuses. Featuring Karl Fousek with Dan Browne, and Spectral Sound System (Michael Trommer and Eric Filion). (Doors at 8pm, $15)

PANEL

Algorithms, Generative Art, Machine Agency at InterAccess

In conversation and open discussion with participating festival artists and performers, Vector Co-Curator Martin Zeilinger explores some of the underlying concerns and questions that inform this year’s events: What makes generative art? Can algorithms ever be creative agents? What is the future of the digital as an expressive medium? Featuring

Dan Browne, Eric Filion, Karl Fousek, Justine Lugli, and Michael Trommer. (1-3pm, FREE)

WRAP PARTY at Reposado

Celebrate another year of Vector with a live performance by Castle If. (8-11pm, FREE)

Art on the BIG Screens Vector Festival Preview

July 11, 8-10pm at Celebration Square, Mississauga (300 City Centre Drive)

Works by COLL.EO and Brent Watanabe

The Algorithmic Imagination

July 15 – August 13 at InterAccess (9 Ossington Avenue)

Works by COLL.EO, Adam Donovan, Justine Lugli, Brent Watanabe

Davis Heslep July 1-31 (109 Niagara Street) at Loop Hole

A. Bill Miller

July 14-17 at Common Sort (1414 Queen Street West)

DAY ZERO: PRE-FESTIVAL PARTY

July 13, 8-11pm at Electric Perfume (805 Danforth Avenue)

with a screening curated by Clint Enns

For a complete schedule and to purchase your festival pass, visit